Allergy Baby: when to start solids?

06-15-2010, 06:03 PM

Dd (now 3.5 yo) had moderate to severe eczema and appeared to be allergic to every food we gave her when we started solids at 6 months. Her allergy story is a long one, but has ended happily. Sufficient to say after all the testing and eliminations, we ended up giving her a constitutional homeopathic remedy and since then she has been able to eat any foods without reaction. But now that we are on the other side of the allergies we are up against eating issues. I feel like her rocky start to eating (denying her most of the foods she wanted to eat and saw her friends eating) may have caused her to have some odd issues regarding food. I wonder if I missed her window for introduction resulting in our current food battles.

Now ds (5.5 months old) is approaching solid foods and I am wondering how to go about it. He is showing all the readiness signs (except his first tooth, which at the rate he's chewing on things and drooling could be arriving very soon). He has had some mild eczema and vomiting issues that I have been able to control with probiotics and lots of lotion. He is very interested in food and clearly wants to experiment. He is riveted on our faces while we eat, his eager eyes shining in anticipation. It breaks my heart how frustrated he gets when he can't grab the food we're eating. So, when would you introduce foods? Would you wait until the somewhat arbitrary 6 months? Would you wait even longer b/c of the known allergies, like 8-9 months? Or would you go for it in this obvious window and just proceed carefully and slowly? Start with steamed summer squash, wait three days, and if all goes well try something else like steamed pear?

With your son, I would let him start to experiment slowly, start with the low allergy options and do the wait and see thing. My doctor always gave the added advice of morning or lunch try a new food that way if you encounter an allergy it isn't waking you up in the middle of the night, or keeping you up trying to help. Also I would highly recommend the book My Child Won't Eat. It has great info to avoid the food battle.

Comment

I would start slowly as you said once I saw signs of readiness. Definitely delaying the foods my other child was allergic to until he was a bit older. But what you said, squash and pear, makes sense. My DD didn't eat much until she was over 1 year old, even though we offered food beginning just before 5 months - played with it more than anything.